


Praying to the Devil

by theleafpile



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angel Wings, F/M, I dont think I can write a fic without mentioning her bed, Identity Reveal, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Season/Series 03, Sorry Not Sorry, TW: Active Shooter, chloe struggles but look at her job, don't worry its okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 05:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12450702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleafpile/pseuds/theleafpile
Summary: Ella encourages Chloe to try praying.Things don't go exactly as planned.





	Praying to the Devil

“But have you ever tried it?” Ella gently pressed, her eyes trained on a microscope. Chloe was absently watching the image on the screen behind the forensic pathologist, seated at the center table. “I mean,” she continued, lifting her head and switching slides to another hair sample, “Not that I’m, like, being all workplace harassment seminar here, but I’ve found it helps.”

Chloe rested her chin on a fist. She could feel her sanity returning in the quiet of the office, the low hum of working machinery and Ella’s smooth movements. She needed some peace. Ella wouldn’t normally be her first choice, but Dan and Lucifer were bickering about some film franchise she had never heard of as they ate lunch together in the break room, their argument carrying all the way out to her desk, and at least this way she still kind of looked like she was working.

“I don’t know. Just sounds kind of… strange. Like begging.”

“It doesn’t have to be that,” Ella quickly replied, shaking her head as she straightened. Her hand moved for the file even as she kept her eyes on Chloe, able to unconsciously multitask in a way that had even Chloe jealous. “You remember that movie, Hunchback of Notre Dame?”

“The Disney one?”

“Yeah!” Ella smiled, filling in part of a form.

“I have an eight year old,” she said, lazily watching.

“So you remember the song, when Esmeralda’s in the church, and she’s singing to the Virgin Mary?”

“And everybody’s asking for something. Wealth, fame –”

“Yeah, but that’s not, really, like,” Ella stumbled, shutting the folder as she collected her thoughts. “Okay. So people ask for stuff all the time, right? And sometimes what they want happens, but that’s not really the point.” She moved along to the back of the room, toward a filing cabinet. “I think, honestly, real prayer is what happens when people are like, ‘Dear God, please don’t let this plane crash,’ or ‘Dear God, please let my child live,’ or –”

“Got it,” Chloe interrupted. “But those are life and death situations. Not like what I’ve seen in churches.”

“Nah, that stuff is usually just in thanks. At least, it’s supposed to be.”

Chloe sighed, spotting Lucifer huffing out the break area with Dan not far behind, her ex-husband with an amused smile on his face. She didn’t need to be a detective to figure out who won _that_ argument. Lucifer spotted her, and turned direction.

“Maybe just give it a shot?” said Ella, hopefulness in her voice. “Couldn’t hurt.”

Chloe kept her eyes on her partner as he sidestepped a passing police officer, brushing down the front of his jacket. 

“Maybe,” she said. 

Satisfied, Ella resumed her humming, of a more familiar tune now, and turned back to her work. 

 

There was no particular case that set it off. Chloe had seen enough, after a decade on the force, to fill a therapist’s notebook, but she filed it away as a hazard of the job and mostly kept such things to herself. She could feel it bleeding out, lately, and had seen enough warning signs in the more senior officers to know what was happening. 

At least she wasn’t in denial. If anything, Chloe was a pragmatist. She didn’t think asking or thanking or saying whatever to thin air or in her mind was going to make a lick of difference, but a couple billion people on the planet couldn't be so wrong, could they?

“Something on your mind, detective?” Lucifer asked, swinging his keyring around his finger while Chloe rubbed her thumb along hers, silent as they walked out to the parking lot together.

“Hmm?” she asked, lost in the nothingness of her thoughts.

“You’re awfully quiet. I’ve made three very pointed remarks about your wonderful ex, and his terrible taste in movies, and you so haven’t as much given me a look about it.”

She paused as they reached her car, gathering herself and looking up at him, smiling sweetly. “That’s because I already know Dan has awful taste.”

“Reason you married him, then?” Lucifer joked, bouncing on his toes. 

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she shook her head and unlocked the car. 

“Why did you marry him?” he asked, quickly, as she opened the door. She paused, turning, one foot already in.

Lucifer seemed to stumble over himself, his words coming out rushed. “Not that it matters. Horrendous institution. Death and taxes.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” she answered, but he was backing away. 

“Good evening, detective,” he muttered, taking another step back before turning away. She watched him stiffly and hurriedly make his way across the parking lot. 

“Okay,” she told the cooling air, and got into the car.

 

The first few signs she’d noticed, of something being wrong, was her pulling away from her coworkers, peers, and friends. 

After Palmetto, after her divorce was finalized, she’d spent too many nights worrying if it was her doing it, if she were intentionally, but unconsciously, sabotaging herself, her happiness. Her marriage probably lasted much longer than it ought to have because she was too afraid it was all her head, that Dan was actually putting in the effort and she was being too critical, that his late nights and missed dinners were actually due to work – she knew how it could be, but was it really because she was Trixie’s _mother_ that she felt like he wasn’t doing enough, or because she was feeling more isolated?

Girl Tribe fixed some of that distance, as did her flirtation with Lucifer.

Both things she did not seek out, or plan, or in any way anticipate. It was almost as if the Universe knew what she was going through and stepped in, in the most obnoxious way possible, to help.

Not that she’d ever admit it, certainly not to Lucifer. But she was thankful. Thankful for his annoying company, his manic glee breathing fresh life into her job, into herself. His friendship with Maze becoming her friendship with Maze, and all the chaos she brought into her life. 

Chloe, for all her logic and reason and straight-laced, buttoned-up, tidying personality did crave a little chaos. What would there to be to clean up, if there was nothing to make a mess?

That evening, Chloe laid in bed, closed her eyes, and tried to think of something to say.

 _“Dear God,”_ she thought. 

Then drew a blank. 

Then, unhelpfully, her mind filled in the blank of God’s face with that of God Johnson, the bearded psychiatric patient Lucifer had seemed to create a connection to out of thin air, until that evaporated as quickly as it came.

She shook the image out of her head, but the image of Lucifer remained. 

Especially that moment, in his room at the Ward, where he took the drugs the nurse provided him with boundless enthusiasm, spouting on about his father, and how truly helpless she felt in that moment. How actually nuts her partner appeared. 

She pulled the covers tighter, turning onto her side. _“Dear God,”_ she tried again, but again, nothing came.

Lucifer was probably just working some stuff out, but while she internalized, he externalized. 

Somehow, they just... worked.

She shut her eyes tighter against the low light of the alarm clock and pulled in a deep, steadying breath.

 _“Dear Lucifer,”_ she began, the voice quiet in her mind, picturing the countless times he’d pulled her from the precipice of falling into herself, of all the times she’d found herself wanting to go to work in the morning, knowing that he would be there. _“Dear Lucifer,”_ she said again. _“Thank you.”_

And, finally, she drifted off to sleep.

 

“You’re welcome,” Lucifer said, speaking loudly over the music as he leaned over the bar. “But you don’t have to thank me, Patrick,” he continued with a smile, grabbing a bottle.

“What?” asked the bartender, moving his focus from a very flattering redhead to his boss. “What’d you need, boss?”

Lucifer poured himself a glass, returning the bottle. “You said thanks.”

“Sorry, what?” he asked, again, over the music. Lucifer waved him off, taking a drink and returning to the wonderful, glittering chaos of the club.

 

By the time she saw him again, Chloe had forgotten about the prayer in the night. They continued their routine, coffee-case-companionship-closure, for another week before Chloe found herself being snappish again. It was only after the third Friday of the month passed that she realized the girls hadn’t gotten together that month, Maze having been away bounty hunting, and Ella at a conference in San Bernardino. 

She declined Lucifer’s offer to join her that evening at Lux – he always offered, and she took comfort in that, dreading the day when the offers stopped coming. 

Trixie, down with a cold, slipped into bed shortly after dinner, leaving Chloe alone in an quiet house on a Friday night, itching – and denying it – for something to do. 

She pulled the book off the coffee table and opened it to her bookmark, leaning against the arm of the couch and pulling her knees up. 

She gave up after about four seconds, letting her forehead rest on the book. 

_“Dear Lucifer,”_ she whispered, in her mind. _“Saint Lucifer,”_ she added, just to make her smile (at the memory of his smile), _“Save me from my boredom.”_

 

Lucifer choked on the drink, coughing it back into the glass tumbler as some of it spilled over the piano’s keys. He stood, pushing back the bench with a cringing squeak against the marble floors of his penthouse, being still too early to make an appearance downstairs. 

“Bloody hell,” he murmured, holding the glass away and coughing again, checking he didn’t spill any on himself. He grabbed a rag from the bar and splashed a little water on it, reflexively wiping down the keys before his brain caught up and he realized why, exactly, his body decided to mix up his trachea and esophagus at that particular moment.

He stilled, holding the rag, listening to the silent apartment. 

“Detective?” he asked the air, unsure.

There was no response, but the words had been as clear as day in his head, in her voice. 

Well, there was only one thing to do.

 

____

 

____

Chloe leaned back against the arm rest, stretching. A small smile made its way across her face. Lucifer coming over would certainly alleviate her boredom, right up to the moment she kicked him out. But she didn’t need him to enjoy a rare, quiet night at home. 

____

In fact, the only way she could have a rare, quiet night at home would be if he decidedly weren’t there. She set the book down and made her way upstairs. 

____

A nice, relaxing evening at home required a bath.

____

 

____

 

____

Lucifer stepped out the elevator into Lux, accosted by the music, thrumming just beneath his skin, and the hum of a room full of satisfied customers. He took a quick look, standing at the top of the stairs, a fresh bottle in hand. More than one face looked up in his direction, humans seeking his gaze like flowers under the sun, and he smiled indulgently at them.

____

He pushed off the railing when he heard a voice call his name. He surveyed the room. The bartender lifted a hand and waved him over, a _“Come help me!”_ look stuck on his face. 

____

Lucifer realized, in that moment, that Chloe’s voice in his mind was probably just his imagination.

____

Or, he tried to convince himself of that, anyway. He descended the stairs, unable to remember the last time he had heard someone else in his head.

____

No one prayed to the Devil, of course.

____

Perhaps it was just a residual side effect of his wings growing back. Like an echo. 

____

But.

____

No one had prayed to _Samael_ , either.

____

He shook it off, and slid through the crowd to the bar, handling a more familiar business.

____

 

____

 

____

“Looking good, Decker!” exclaimed Ella, far too loud in the middle of the precinct as Chloe descended the stairs, Lucifer in tow. Ella’s eyes widened, backtracking. “I mean, you too, Lucifer. Looking… good.”

____

“As ever,” he answered, his fear of the pathologist very much like that of Trixie – she was unpredictable in her movements, which was usually fine, except when it was directed at him. 

____

“What’s up?” Chloe asked, sweeping Ella into her stride as they all made their way into her office. Ella jabbered on, mile a minute, about how the dirt found in the tire treads led her to narrow the search area down to one of only a thousand potential spots, and Chloe nicely, but firmly, redirected the conversation toward some sort of conclusion only four times, prompting Lucifer to make an excuse and duck out of the room. 

____

Chloe spied him heading toward the vending machine.

____

By the time she looked back, Ella had stopped talking, eyeing her with a knowing smile on her face.

____

“What?” Chloe asked.

____

“You look calmer. Have you tried…?”

____

Chloe resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered, and the other woman beamed. 

____

“And?”

____

“And what?”

____

“And it helped?”

____

“Yeah, sure. Helped me… focus, I guess. So about that dirt…” she continued, steering the conversation away from that topic as Lucifer reentered the room, an armful of various bags of chips.

____

Chloe snagged one when he wasn’t looking, but she caught a smile from him when she popped it open under the table.

____

 

____

 

____

After a few weeks, Lucifer had occupied the space his mind created around the possible-prayer moment with images of new women he took to his bed, and he forgot. 

____

He was in the middle of adding to that particular memory collection when a small voice in his mind said his name, and he shrugged it off, pulling the woman atop him and focusing all his energy into… not her mouth.

____

But the voice…

____

Was sad.

____

It kind of killed the buzz.

____

He made sure to get the woman off another few times, but was unable to focus on his own pleasure _(Heaven forbid, something must have really been happening to him)_. The sound of his name, uttered with such anguish, stuck in his brain like a grain of sand. 

____

As soon as the woman dozed off, he made himself presentable and started to leave. A pause at the elevator, a long, mournful look over his shoulder at the potential pleasures he could definitely be having, right this very moment, if only – 

____

The elevator opened, and the thought was abandoned. 

____

 

____

 

____

Chloe pulled herself to lean against the headboard, letting the covers fall around her knees. 

____

Nothing set it off. No case where the victim looked like her child. No near-death experience. No pulling her gun and hoping her aim was true.

____

She almost said, _praying_ , but that was all new.

____

What wasn’t new was the weight of it, of all the cases where those things had happened and she let them pile up around her like a hoarder, unable to see objectively that the memories, unpurged, were starting to pile up around her and she couldn’t move forward because of it.

____

She brushed the tears off her face with the back of her hand and looked to the ceiling, resting her head against the wall.

____

His name bounced around her head.

____

He had been the one to save her. 

____

Over and over and over, he had been there.

____

He called the ambulance when Barnes shot her, soon after they met. He was the one who was in the hospital when she opened her eyes. He was the one to find the formula for the antidote when she was poisoned, though later she was unable to get any more information from him or Dan about it. He was there when Trixie was kidnapped, and had died – 

____

He died, right in front her eyes. 

____

Except that he didn’t.

____

The light from streetlamps filtered through the closed blinds of the room, sodium-yellow and cold.

____

She let the tears fall, her mind unable to find something to focus on to stop them or to keep them going. Just – blank. Clear. 

____

Lifeless.

____

The cold drops dripped onto her chest, her nightshirt loose around the collar. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. 

____

In a sniff, she didn’t hear the soft knock at the front door.

____

She did hear the soft pad of feet approach her closed bedroom door, and she quickly wiped her face on the corner of her sheet, thinking that she didn’t want Trixie to see her mother in such a state. 

____

Instead, a gentle “Detective?” called out, and she mentally surveyed herself.

____

_Gross._

____

“Lucifer?” she answered, and the door eased open. She wiped her face at a stray tear, suddenly angry at her display of weakness. “What are you doing here?”

____

He stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, leaving the door halfway open behind him. “You called me.”

____

She caught her jaw before it fell open. “Excuse me?”

____

“You called me,” he repeated, as though she were being especially thick. “I heard you.”

____

“Lucifer, it’s –” she started, squinting at the clock. “I wouldn’t call you at one in the morning.”

____

He opened his mouth to answer, but no explanation came out. 

____

She took in his disheveled state, something only someone who knew him could see. His perfectly coiffed hair, only quickly run through. His impeccable shirt, loosely tucked in, as though he were in a rush. 

____

“Are you drunk?” she asked.

____

He sighed wearily. “I haven’t been drunk in ages,” he complained, and that was it. She struggled with the sheets, then shot up from the bed, ushering him out the room. 

____

“Out,” she said, firmly. He allowed her to push him down the stairs and back toward the front door. 

____

“Detective!” he protested, digging in his heels. “You called me! What was I supposed to do?”

____

“Not be crazy?” she answered, eyes fixed firmly on the door. 

____

“I’m not –” he said, whirling around and stopping her from pushing him any further. “I’m not crazy,” he said, more gently. “I heard you. In my head. You sounded… sad.”

____

He said it as though it were almost a question, as though he were confused by all this himself.

____

Which was insane.

____

“Okay,” she said, mustering up what little self-respect she had left and nodding. “Well, I didn’t. So. Bye.”

____

“Fine,” he snapped, straightening his jacket. He stormed away, throwing his words over his shoulder. “Next time you seek divine counsel, keep my name out of it.”

____

He slammed the door, jarring Trixie’s pictures on the wall, and she flinched at the noise.

____

An alarmed “Mommy?” called out, and Chloe exhaled, shutting her eyes in frustration.

____

 

____

 

____

Things became a little… awkward, after that.

____

They kept side-eyeing each other at the precinct, Chloe untrusting – convinced he must have some kind of surveillance on her house, and God, her bedroom – to the point where she searched it the next day, and he, very much put-off and a little confused and a hell of lot embarrassed at the all-encompassing, compelling need he felt to go to her.

____

“Trouble in paradise?” Ella asked Lucifer, leaning into him as Chloe filed out of the room with several other detectives, heading to a briefing. Lucifer didn’t really care about sitting through those, confident he could get whatever information he needed, whenever he needed it. “Had a throw-down with the missus?” she asked again, speaking out of the corner of her mouth until the room drained.

____

He glanced down at the smallish scientist. “No,” he answered, but she merely lifted an eyebrow and waited. “Sort of.”

____

“Wanna talk about it?” she asked, genuinely open to the possibility. 

____

He did a double take, then checked the detective was definitely out of earshot. 

____

“I don’t understand why she’s upset,” he said, and Ella nodded, leading him toward her office for a more private conversation. “She called me, and I came over, and then she kicked me out! She’s made that a habit, you know.”

____

Ella nodded sympathetically, closing the door behind them and attempting to look busy.

____

“When I was having a perfectly delightful evening, too,” he continued, pacing. “This lovely woman, Yvette –”

____

Ella pointedly cleared her throat.

____

“– anyway. More than serviceable, when, out of nowhere, Chloe barges in,”

____

“She walked in on you?” she whispered, eyes wide.

____

“No, of course not. Her voice.”

____

“You heard her?”

____

“Yes.”

____

“In your apartment?”

____

“No.” He stopped, lifting his hands, eager to be understood. “I heard her, in my head.”

____

Ella paused her busy hands. “Uh-huh.”

____

“And then I couldn’t –” 

____

She lifted another eyebrow. He stuttered to a stop.

____

“– I felt like, I should see if he was okay. And she wasn’t. She was in her bedroom, upset about something, and then she kicked me out.”

____

“You broke into her house?”

____

“That’s really beside the point.”

____

Ella’s bemused expression flatted into something blank, and she let her hands slowly drop to the table. “Oh, my God.”

____

“Sure,” Lucifer said, mostly to himself, as he had found some papers to focus his attention on. “Always Him. Not like I’m even in the room.”

____

“She’s been…” Ella murmured, and Lucifer looked up, curious at whatever realization was dawning on the pathologist’s face.

____

She swallowed.

____

“…praying,” she finished.

____

“Yes, I noticed. But why was she upset when I answered?”

____

Ella pushed a few papers away as she took a calculated step backward, toward the other door. “Are you…?”

____

Lucifer waited for more, but nothing came. The door behind him opened, Chloe ducking her head in. “We’ve got to go,” she said, flashing a polite smile at Ella as Lucifer straightened and followed her out.

____

Ella stood, alone in the empty room, and tried to remember how to breathe.

____

 

____

 

____

It was bound to happen, eventually.

____

They could only tempt fate so many times before it lashed out, striking at whatever was closest like a coiled snake, deprived and hungry. 

____

In this case, Lucifer.

____

They followed the suspect to the office building where he worked, sparking such comments from Lucifer as “I should remodel Hell, based on this image,” and “People come here, willingly, and don’t kill themselves when they step through the door?”

____

Or, where the suspect used to work, until in a fit of rage he strangled his boss. Allegedly. 

____

And, apparently, returned for more. Except more now included a semi-automatic AR 15 and a bullet for every employee. 

____

But they didn’t know that, until shots had already been fired.

____

The fire alarm worked to empty most the building and Chloe prayed to God that the rest had gone through Active Shooter training in the last six months.

____

They located the gunman on the third floor, and Chloe was able to spot through the window the rest of the force and SWAT as they pooled outside, the team coming in and snaking through the building. 

____

Gunshots rang over their heads as they tucked themselves into opposite cubicles, raining down over them. The man had nothing left to lose, making him the most dangerous type of person there could be.

____

Lucifer flinched as a bit of cubicle wall smacked him in the face, and looked to Chloe’s face. She was hyper-focused, trying to pinpoint the shooter’s location before returning fire.

____

Instinctively, he reached toward her, and the movement was enough for him to be located.

____

He didn’t hear it when it hit him just above the shoulder, grazing over the back of his neck. 

____

He did hear, clear as bell and about as loud as the ones Quasimodo rang out above Paris, Chloe screaming his name in his head. He pressed the opposite hand onto his shoulder, watching as Chloe stood, returning fire carelessly.

____

She hadn’t said a word, but his ears still rung with the panicked shout of it.

____

Two more shots, and there was a thud and a yowl, familiar to him as the scream of the dying, and then silence.

____

“That hurt,” he said, as she knelt down, hands fluttering to cover his own and coming away bloody.

____

“Of course it hurt, Lucifer. You’ve been shot.”

____

“No,” he said, annoyed at the blood, the mortality, the choking in his throat at the fear on her face. “Your voice.”

____

He looked into her eyes, her bright, blue eyes, welling with unshed tears. She pushed them back, blinking, focusing on putting pressure on the wound. 

____

“I heard you, Chloe,” he said, softer, trying to get her to understand. 

____

She wasn’t, not meeting his eyes again.

____

He lifted her bloodied hand from his shoulder to his temple, and her gaze followed. 

____

“I heard you,” he said again.

____

“No,” she said, taking back her hand. “No.”

____

A muffled groan from across the room, a scraping along the floor, the heft of something heavy – 

____

Lucifer realized, too late, as the gunman pulled the trigger. 

____

At Chloe.

____

Who was kneeling in the center of the aisle, adrenaline making her too focused on her partner to see it for herself.

____

Lucifer did not have the ability to stop time, but he knew desire.

____

And right now, his only desire was to save Chloe.

____

In a movement too fast to follow with human eyes, he flared his wings, covering her from the spray of bullets. The motion pulled at his shoulder and he hissed in the flash of red and pain that followed. He could feel the lead projectiles bounce off the wing like drops of rain. They were designed to withstand anything. No human weapon was going to cause any damage against the divine.

____

In a final gasp, the gunman died, heading right where he belonged.

____

Lucifer relaxed, letting the wings drop to the floor in exhaustion.

____

He jolted from another rush of pain, realizing Chloe was digging her nails into his wounded flesh, her eyes completely unfocused and staring straight at his open collar.

____

Another shout, from the opposite direction this time, and he pulled his wings back in, tucking the away from prying eyes.

____

Chloe’s head snapped toward the sound and she shouted for an ambulance.

____

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and she ignored him.

____

She did not look into his eyes for the rest of the day, until he finally waved off the handsy paramedic and elected to drive home himself.

____

 

____

 

____

By the time he got back to the Lux, the wound had healed, but the image of Chloe’s fearful eyes in his mind did not disappear.

____

There was a reason angels appearing to humans always started with the phrase, “Be not afraid.”

____

Not that he ever cared. Fear was kind of his thing.

____

Just not on _her_.

____

 

____

 

____

She had not thrown up since she was a rookie officer, yet here she was, pulled over on the highway, puking like some college freshman after a raver.

____

A couple of angry honks followed as she dry-heaved in the middle of late afternoon traffic, but she ignored them. She gave her statement as Lucifer got patched up, and the lieutenant sent her home to finish the paperwork fresh in the morning, and she wanted nothing more than to go home and fall into a familiar routine.

____

She straightened, wiped her mouth, took a deep breath (and pushed down the nausea that followed) and set her mouth, determined to do just that.

____

The bad guy was dead. He would only win if she let him.

____

She felt the crushing weight of all the bad guys she had put away or put down, their deeds shoving against her like dammed waters, eager to find a crack in her resolve.

____

She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

____

 

____

 

____

The babysitter could tell something was off as soon as Chloe walked in the door, and she realized she was still covered in Lucifer’s blood. Trixie was happily watching a movie, unwilling to move from the couch but offered a cheerful “Hello, Mommy!” for which she was thankful. 

____

Chloe paid the babysitter with shaking hands, caked in drying blood, and quickly made her way to the bathroom to clean up.

____

_God, I’m a mess,_ she thought, followed by an audible, manic laugh. _Fuck, He can hear me. I don’t mean – ah. Fuck._

____

_You know._

____

 

____

 

____

Dan came over just as she was getting dinner ready, rushing inside like he still had the right to – and, she supposed, he did. He took her into a huge hug without saying a word, sparking a very interested look from their child, and Chloe nodded as he pulled away. He held her at arm’s length, studying her face. After a moment, apparently finding what he was looking for, he turned and greeting the child.

____

After dinner, he quietly pulled her aside. “Go,” he said. 

____

It was all he needed to say.

____

 

____

 

____

_Dear Lucifer_ , she thought, driving to Lux. _Dear Lucifer, I’m sorry._

____

He stood on the balcony, overlooking the City of Angels.

____

His home.

____

The only home he’d ever had.

____

Ironic.

____

He pushed so hard against accepting this was what he was supposed to be, now, but he knew no other way to be other than rebelling.

____

He lit up another cigarette, leaning on the railing. He looked down. He could, technically, fall without fear.

____

The late evening wind carried the ash into the setting sun and he watched it, feeling nothing at all.

____

He’d saved her life. That had to be enough. She was saying goodbye, now. 

____

Who apologizes to the Devil?

____

_I’m sorry,_ it repeated, floating away like a mantra, the words losing their meaning.

____

“I’m sorry,” it repeated, again, and he sighed, taking a drag. “Lucifer.”

____

But the sound wasn’t just in his head, now.

____

He turned to see her, wavering in the balcony doors. “You told me,” she said, slowly and evenly, as he stared, dumbfounded. “You told me and I didn’t listen.”

____

“You had no reason to believe me,” he answered.

____

A cold wind prompted a shiver from her, and he flicked the cigarette over the edge before he could think about it, moving to her side and ushering her inside.

____

She grabbed his lapel before they could move any further, swinging him to a stop. He looked down at her hands, creasing the fabric under the tight grip. “Tom Ford, detective. Please.”

____

She reluctantly released him, shaking her head. “You’re the Devil?” she asked, suddenly clasping a hand over her mouth to stifle a manic laugh.

____

“Lovely,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. Her eyes followed the motion and then her hands were there, pushing off his jacket, tugging at the buttons of his shirt. “Bloody hell, detective, how long have you been waiting to do that?”

____

“Shut up,” she said, finally tearing the fabric away enough to see the wound, closed, as though it had never even been there at all. “God,” she whispered. 

____

“No, not really.”

____

“Lucifer,” she said, her tone serious. She released her hands from him as though they burned. She studied them before she lifted her eyes to his. He tried to understand what he saw there, and could not. “You saved me.”

____

It hit him, then, like a flash of his own light smacking him squarely in the face. Mentally, he smacked himself, but physically, his hands only went to her hold, gently, onto her shoulders. 

____

That look.

____

“No,” he said, and she stared as the wings popped out of their own accord, and he stifled an embarrassed groan at that – until she ran her fingers through the feathers of one, and his mind whited out as he nearly forgot what he wanted to say. They wings fluffed up under her touch, preening for her, and she smiled at the small movement.

____

“No?” she asked, more light and teasing, still running her fingers through them. He felt the sensation run all the way up the wing and down his back, and right into his – 

____

“No,” he said quickly, lightly grabbing her hand and pulling it away, leaving it tucked neatly inside his own.

____

Her eyes shined bright, a laugh behind them, and he knew now that she was not afraid.

____

“No,” he corrected, once more. “You saved me.”

____


End file.
